Description: Given the important role of nitrogen input from livestock systems in terrestrial nutrient cycles and the atmospheric chemical composition, it is vital to have a robust estimation of the magnitude and spatiotemporal variation in manure nitrogen production and its application to cropland across the globe. In this study, we used the dataset from the Global Livestock Impact Mapping System (GLIMS) in conjunction with country-specific annual livestock populations to reconstruct the manure nitrogen production during 1860-2014. The estimated manure nitrogen production increased from 21.4 Tg N/yr in 1860 to 131.0 Tg N/yr in 2014 with a significant annual increasing trend (0.7 Tg N/ yr, p 〈 0.01). Changes in manure nitrogen production exhibited high spatial variability and concentrated in several hotspots (e.g., Western Europe, India, northeastern China, and southeastern Australia) across the globe over the study period. In the 1860s, the northern midlatitude region was the largest manure producer, accounting for ~52 % of the global total, while low-latitude regions became the largest share (~48 %) in the most recent 5 years (2010-2014). Among all the continents, Asia accounted for over one-fourth of the global manure production during 1860-2014. Cattle dominated the manure nitrogen production and contributed ~44 % of the total manure nitrogen production in 2014, followed by goats, sheep, swine, and chickens. The manure nitrogen application to cropland accounts for less than one-fifth of the total manure nitrogen production over the study period. The 5 arcmin gridded global dataset of manure nitrogen production generated from this study could be used as an input for global or regional land surface and ecosystem models to evaluate the impacts of manure nitrogen on key biogeochemical processes and water quality. To ensure food security and environmental sustainability, it is necessary to implement proper manure management practices on cropland across the globe.

Description: In addition to enhance agricultural productivity, synthetic nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) fertilizer application in croplands dramatically altered global nutrient budget, water quality, greenhouse gas balance, and their feedbacks to the climate system. However, due to the lack of geospatial fertilizer input data, current Earth system/land surface modeling studies have to ignore or use over-simplified data (e.g., static, spatially uniform fertilizer use) to characterize agricultural N and P input over decadal or century-long period. We therefore develop a global time-series gridded data of annual synthetic N and P fertilizer use rate in croplands, matched with HYDE 3,2 historical land use maps, at a resolution of 0.5º latitude by longitude during 1900-2013. Our data indicate N and P fertilizer use rates increased by approximately 8 times and 3 times, respectively, since the year 1961, when IFA (International Fertilizer Industry Association) and FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization) survey of country-level fertilizer input were available. Considering cropland expansion, increase of total fertilizer consumption amount is even larger. Hotspots of agricultural N fertilizer use shifted from the U.S. and Western Europe in the 1960s to East Asia in the early 21st century. P fertilizer input show the similar pattern with additional hotspot in Brazil. We find a global increase of fertilizer N/P ratio by 0.8 g N/g P per decade (p〈 0.05) during 1961-2013, which may have important global implication of human impacts on agroecosystem functions in the long run. Our data can serve as one of critical input drivers for regional and global assessment on agricultural productivity, crop yield, agriculture-derived greenhouse gas balance, global nutrient budget, land-to-aquatic nutrient loss, and ecosystem feedback to the climate system.

Description: Plantation forest area in the conterminous United States (CONUS) ranked second among the world's nations in the land area apportioned to forest plantation management. As compared to the naturally-regenerated forests, plantation forests demonstrate significant differences in biophysical characteristics, and biogeochemical and hydrological cycles as a result of more intensive management practices. Inventory data have been reported for multiple time periods at plot, state and regional scales across the CONUS, but there lacks the requisite annual and spatially-explicit plantation data set over a long-term period for analysis of the role of plantation management at regional or national scale. Through synthesizing multiple inventory data sources, this study developed methods to spatialize the time series plantation forest and tree species distribution data for the CONUS over the 1928-2012 time period. According to this new data set, plantation forest area increased from near zero in the 1930s to 268.27 thousand km2 by 2012, accounting for 8.65% of the total area of forest land area in the CONUS by 2012. Regionally, the South contained the highest proportion of plantation forests, accounting for about 19.34% of total forest land area in 2012. This time series and gridded data set developed here can be readily applied in regional Earth system modeling frameworks for assessing the impacts of plantation management practices on forest productivity, carbon and nitrogen stocks, and greenhouse gas (e.g., CO2, CH4 and N2O) and water fluxes at regional or national scales.

Description: Livestock manure, as recyclable sources for nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in the Soil-Plant-Animal system, plays an important role in nutrient cycling. Given the agricultural benefits and environmental pollutions brought by manure, it is of great importance to estimate the spatial variations and temporal trajectories of manure production and its application in croplands of the continental United States (U.S.). Here, we developed datasets of annual animal manure N and P production and application in the continental U.S. at a 30 arc-second resolution over the period of 1860-2017. The total production of manure N and P increased from 1.4 Tg N yr-1 and 0.3 Tg P yr-1 in 1860 to 7.4 Tg N yr-1 and 2.3 Tg P yr-1 in 2017. The increasing manure nutrient production was associated with increased livestock numbers before the 1980s and enhanced livestock weights after the 1980s. The high-nutrient region mainly enlarged from the Midwest toward the Southern U.S., and became more concentrated in numerous hot spots after the 1980s. The South Atlantic-Gulf and Mid-Atlantic basins were the two critical coastal regions with high environmental risks due to the enrichment of manure nutrient production and application from the 1970s to 2010s. Our long-term manure N and P datasets provide critical information for national and regional assessments of nutrient budgets and can also serve as the input data for ecosystem and hydrological models to examine biogeochemical cycles in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

Description: Production and application to soils of manure excreta from livestock production significantly perturb the global nutrient balance and result in significant greenhouse gas emissions that warm the earth's climate. Despite much attention paid to synthetic nitrogen (N) fertilizer and manure N applications to croplands, spatially-explicit, continuous time-series datasets of manure and fertilizer N inputs on pastures and rangelands are lacking. We developed three global gridded datasets at a resolution of 0.5 degree by 0.5 degree for the period 1860-2016 (i.e., annual manure N deposition (by grazing animals) rate, synthetic N fertilizer and N manure application rates), by combining annual and 5-arc minute spatial data on pastures and rangelands with country-level statistics on livestock manure, mineral and chemical fertilizers, and land use information for cropland and permanent meadows and pastures from the Food and Agricultural Organization database (FAOSTAT). Based on the new data products, we estimated that total N inputs, sum of manure N deposition, manure and fertilizer N application to pastures and rangelands increased globally from 15 to 101 Tg N yr-1 during 1860-2016. In particular during the period 2000-2016, livestock manure N deposition accounted for 83% of the total N inputs, whereas manure and fertilizer N application accounted 9% and 8%, respectively. At the regional scale, hotspots of manure N deposition remained largely similar during the period 1860-2016 (i.e., southern Asia, Africa, and South America), however hotspots of manure and fertilizer N application shifted from Europe to southern Asia in the early 21st century. The new three global datasets contribute to fill previous data gaps of global and regional N inputs in pastures and rangelands, improving the ability of ecosystem and biogeochemistry models to investigate the global impacts of N enrichment due to agriculture, in terms of associated greenhouse gas emissions and environmental sustainability issues.

Description: Excessive anthropogenic nitrogen (N) inputs to the biosphere have disrupted the global nitrogen cycle. To better quantify the spatial and temporal patterns of anthropogenic N enrichments, assess their impacts on the biogeochemical cycles of the planet and other living organisms, and improve nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) for sustainable development, we develop a comprehensive and synthetic dataset for anthropogenic N inputs to the terrestrial biosphere. This Harmonized Anthropogenic N Inputs (HaNi) dataset takes advantage of different data sources in a spatiotemporally consistent way to generate a set of high-resolution gridded N input products from the preindustrial to present (1860-2019). The HaNi dataset includes annual rates of synthetic N fertilizer, manure application/deposition, and atmospheric N deposition in cropland, pasture, and rangeland at 5-arcmin. Specifically, the N inputs are categorized, according to the N forms and the land use, as 1) NH4-N fertilizer applied to cropland, 2) NO3-N fertilizer applied to cropland, 3) NH4-N fertilizer applied to pasture, 4) NO3-N fertilizer applied to pasture, 5) manure N application on cropland, 6) manure N application on pasture, 7) manure N deposition on pasture, 8) manure N deposition on rangeland, 9) NHx-N deposition, and 10) NOy-N deposition. The total anthropogenic N (TN) inputs to global terrestrial ecosystems increased from 29.05 Tg N yr-1 in the 1860s to 267.23 Tg N yr-1 in the 2010s, with the dominant N source changing from atmospheric N deposition (before the 1900s) to manure N (the 1910s-2000s), and to synthetic fertilizer in the 2010s. The proportion of synthetic NH4-N fertilizer increased from 64% in the 1960s to 90% in the 2010s, while synthetic NO3-N fertilizer decreased from 36% in the 1960s to 10% in the 2010s. Hotspots of TN inputs shifted from Europe and North America to East and South Asia during the 1960s-2010s. Such spatial and temporal dynamics captured by the HaNi dataset are expected to facilitate a comprehensive assessment of the coupled human-earth system and address a variety of social welfare issues, such as climate-biosphere feedback, air pollution, water quality, and biodiversity.

Description: China has promoted its vegetation cover and terrestrial carbon sink through ecological restorations since the end of the 20th century. However, the temporal variation in vegetation carbon sequestration remains unclear, and the relative effects of climate change and human efforts are under debate. By integrating remote sensing and machine learning approaches into modelling, we explored the biological and physical pathways by which both climate change and human activities (e.g., ecological restoration, cropland expansion, and urbanization) have altered the Chinese terrestrial ecosystem, including the vegetation cover, surface heat fluxes, water flux and finally, vegetation carbon sequestration (i.e., gross and net primary production, GPP and NPP). During 2001~2018, GPP in China increased significantly at a rate of 49.1~53.1 TgC/yr2, and the climatic and anthropogenic contributions to GPP gains were comparable (48%~56% vs. 44%~52%). Spatially, afforestation dominated the forest cover expansions in the farming-pastoral ecotone in northern China, the Loess Plateau and the southwest karst region, while climate change promoted vegetation cover in most parts of southeastern China. Meanwhile, the NPP trend (22.4~24.9 TgC/yr2) during 2001~2018 was highly attributed to human disturbances (71%~81%), particularly in southern, eastern and northeastern China. The increases in both GPP and NPP both accelerated after 2010. This is because that over 2001~2010, the anthropogenic NPP gains were generally offset by the negative climatic impact in southern China. However, after 2010, the climatic influence reversed, becoming positive, thus magnifying the positive impact of ecological restoration.

Description: Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere – the “global carbon budget” – is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe data sets and methodology to quantify the five major components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties. Fossil CO2 emissions (EFF) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, while emissions from land use and land-use change (ELUC), mainly deforestation, are based on land use and land-use change data and bookkeeping models. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly and its growth rate (GATM) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The ocean CO2 sink (SOCEAN) and terrestrial CO2 sink (SLAND) are estimated with global process models constrained by observations. The resulting carbon budget imbalance (BIM), the difference between the estimated total emissions and the estimated changes in the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere, is a measure of imperfect data and understanding of the contemporary carbon cycle. All uncertainties are reported as ±1σ. For the last decade available (2008–2017), EFF was 9.4±0.5 GtC yr−1, ELUC 1.5±0.7 GtC yr−1, GATM 4.7±0.02 GtC yr−1, SOCEAN 2.4±0.5 GtC yr−1, and SLAND 3.2±0.8 GtC yr−1, with a budget imbalance BIM of 0.5 GtC yr−1 indicating overestimated emissions and/or underestimated sinks. For the year 2017 alone, the growth in EFF was about 1.6 % and emissions increased to 9.9±0.5 GtC yr−1. Also for 2017, ELUC was 1.4±0.7 GtC yr−1, GATM was 4.6±0.2 GtC yr−1, SOCEAN was 2.5±0.5 GtC yr−1, and SLAND was 3.8±0.8 GtC yr−1, with a BIM of 0.3 GtC. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 405.0±0.1 ppm averaged over 2017. For 2018, preliminary data for the first 6–9 months indicate a renewed growth in EFF of +2.7 % (range of 1.8 % to 3.7 %) based on national emission projections for China, the US, the EU, and India and projections of gross domestic product corrected for recent changes in the carbon intensity of the economy for the rest of the world. The analysis presented here shows that the mean and trend in the five components of the global carbon budget are consistently estimated over the period of 1959–2017, but discrepancies of up to 1 GtC yr−1 persist for the representation of semi-decadal variability in CO2 fluxes. A detailed comparison among individual estimates and the introduction of a broad range of observations show (1) no consensus in the mean and trend in land-use change emissions, (2) a persistent low agreement among the different methods on the magnitude of the land CO2 flux in the northern extra-tropics, and (3) an apparent underestimation of the CO2 variability by ocean models, originating outside the tropics. This living data update documents changes in the methods and data sets used in this new global carbon budget and the progress in understanding the global carbon cycle compared with previous publications of this data set (Le Quéré et al., 2018, 2016, 2015a, b, 2014, 2013)